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How America Uses Its Land

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Re: How America Uses Its Land

#171

Post by miguelrochefort »

torpfactory wrote: post #14
gweinberg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot less impressive when you recognize most grazing land isn't much good for anything else.

It is a pretty significant diversion of land from a natural state though. Cattle grazing, thought it isn’t an ecological disaster like dam building, is quite different than leaving the land untouched. Plus, a good portion of the country’s good farmland is diverted to growing feed for those animals. Think of it like: how many acres have been changed from a natural ecosystem to an artificial one for meat eating.

Livestock can actually reverse desertification:

https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/reversing-desertification-with-l...

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#173

Post by zebrafish »

jaggederest wrote: post #91
davidw wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but some of it... it's really just like this: https://goo.gl/maps/rQjoQWY9Svu It doesn't support many cattle, but that's about all you can do with it, and there are better places for 'outdoor activities'. Cattle do need to be managed so as to allow the native species (sage grouse for instance) to thrive.

I'm pretty sure the Oregon high desert is really good at being high desert. Does the Mojave have to be useful to humans to be a valuable thing?

It does have to be useful to the owner of the land who is getting taxed on it and has some investment in the land.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#174

Post by grasshopperpurp »

clarkevans wrote: post #167
zip1234 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a problem that those people are buying more land? If anything, a single owner that doesn't need the land for economic purposes can protect it much better than a bunch of individual people. My point is that people assume automatically that this is bad and must be stopped. Maybe it is good?

Concentrated ownership is power. Power tends to corrupt.

Yes, accountability and balance are the main issues. Hoping people will be good doesn't tend to work out well.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#175

Post by bunderbunder »

pythonaut_16 wrote: post #164
jaggederest wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the Oregon high desert is really good at being high desert. Does the Mojave have to be useful to humans to be a valuable thing?

I feel like you're being a little disingenuous to the OP. He's obviously talking about the economic/productivity value of the land, which is to say that the BLM considers large parts of the country to have little economic value beyond growing grass and thus designates it as free range grazing land. It doesn't mean it has no value as a wild, natural environment, just that from an economic development perspective there…

Nowadays, an alternative, and possibly greater, source of economic value might be as a carbon sink.

I'm curious if some of this pasture land might be more heavily forested if it weren't being grazed. Out where my folks live in Colorado, for example, it's striking to see how anything that's anywhere close to flat enough for cattle to walk on is scrubland, but the sides of the mountains are well-forested. I'm no ecologist, but I doubt that's because trees just happen to only grow well on steep terrain.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#176

Post by justinwp »

rayiner wrote: post #48

The one third being used for cows is misleading. Pasture is basically the Bureau of Land Management’s default use for the vast swaths of federal land. It’s like “here is this land, you’re allowed to graze on it with a permit.” That doesn’t produce that many cows—it’s more about politics and the fact that much of the land is good for little else besides growing grass. The real land use from growing meat comes from the…

>Pasture is basically the Bureau of Land Management’s default use for the vast swaths of federal land. It’s like “here is this land, you’re allowed to graze on it with a permit.” That doesn’t produce that many cows...

And yet it is an incredibly destructive use of land for so few cows. BLM land is often shrubby desert and is not able to cope with the impacts of the cows and remain a healthy ecosystem.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#177

Post by dbingham »

pythonaut_16 wrote: post #164
jaggederest wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the Oregon high desert is really good at being high desert. Does the Mojave have to be useful to humans to be a valuable thing?

I feel like you're being a little disingenuous to the OP. He's obviously talking about the economic/productivity value of the land, which is to say that the BLM considers large parts of the country to have little economic value beyond growing grass and thus designates it as free range grazing land. It doesn't mean it has no value as a wild, natural environment, just that from an economic development perspective there…

I think the OP probably did mean that and wasn't thinking that much more deeply about the statement, but I also think it is that very mindset that the posters challenging it are targeting. Because that mindset - looking at everything through a lens of economic development, and a very narrow definition of economic development at that - is incredibly destructive.

I don't think its necessarily a knock on OP, so much as it is just meant to be a reminder that we should really try not to just fall into that way of thinking.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#178

Post by panzagl »

vfc1 wrote: post #134

Looking at that map, Between livestock pasture, feed and feed export it accounts for around 45% of the US. Food that we eat is only a small fraction. Isn’t this a huge waste of resources, and completely unsustainable? If we ate the produce directly instead of feeding it to cows and eating them, how many people could we feed? What about the gigantic consumption of water this implies? The link between this to global wa…

Feeding the world's hungry hasn't been about agricultural output for a long time- it's more about transportation and distribution.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#179

Post by norepicycle »

rayiner wrote: post #48

The one third being used for cows is misleading. Pasture is basically the Bureau of Land Management’s default use for the vast swaths of federal land. It’s like “here is this land, you’re allowed to graze on it with a permit.” That doesn’t produce that many cows—it’s more about politics and the fact that much of the land is good for little else besides growing grass. The real land use from growing meat comes from the…

A Twitter thread making a similar point:

https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/102439440363551539...

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#180

Post by justinwp »

davidw wrote: post #74
craftyguy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, clearly gp has never ventured out into some of this. There are gems here for hiking/backpacking, and preserving wildlife/watersheds, and much more than just feeding cows.

Yes, but some of it... it's really just like this: https://goo.gl/maps/rQjoQWY9Svu It doesn't support many cattle, but that's about all you can do with it, and there are better places for 'outdoor activities'. Cattle do need to be managed so as to allow the native species (sage grouse for instance) to thrive.

>but that's about all you can do with it, and there are better places for 'outdoor activities'

there are better things to eat than shitty meat from cows grazing in a desert. i'll take the outdoor activities and the preservation of these ecosystems

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